What started out as a quick de-fluff of Aycliffe, Durham has turned into an absolute MONSTER.

With at least 1485 … no, that’s not a typo … ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FIVE new people, complete with hundreds of Census, BMD, photographs, war records and the odd certificate, it’s our biggest yet.

The update mainly covers Durham and Northumberland, but there are also a few minor skirmishes into Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, Canada and America, just to add to the confusion. All-in-all there are quite a few unattached trees which don’t fit anywhere obvious. No doubt in time these will fit into the Grinton jigsaw, or some other hotbed. It’s not as if we’re short of these.

We’ve also got our first foray into Minchinhampton in Gloucestershire. It turns out that one Close seems to be responsible for hundreds of sub-Closes in the Stroud area.